We need a Github of Science
Open Science efforts like arXiv and PLoS ONE should follow GitHub’s lead and embrace the social web.
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If Not Darwin, Who?
What would physics look like if Einstein had never existed, or biology without Darwin?
How has social media enhanced your research?
Authorea, The Winnower, and Reddit are teaming up to explore the role of social media in research and discovery. We want to hear from you, in essay form!
What Is the Problem for Which Interdisciplinarity Is the Solution?
The answer is what I call “epistemic rent-seeking,” namely, the tendency for disciplines to become increasingly proprietary in their relationship to organized inquiry.
A short (personal) future history of revolution 2.0
It is not an insult when others try to replicate our research—it is standard science
Humans 2.0
Michael Specter on CRISPR, a new technology that enables us to manipulate our genetic code with unprecedented ease, and which may lead to new cancer treatments.
Reproducing results: how big is the problem?
Paul Jump examines the many reasons for irreproducibility in science and efforts to tackle it.
When Open Access is the norm, how do scientists work together online?
The Web was invented to enable scientists to collaborate.
Science for the people!
In the 1970s, radical scientists thought they could change the world - if they could change science first.
A 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov on creativity
Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author: In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures.
Safe European home
I have a dream…. that one day top‐quality science will be practised all over the world. Yes, I know: it's just another of my silly dreams.
The science of citations
Because the odds that a single paper will spread a good idea are simply too small. Three is good. Four is better. Five is much better.
Why do we still have journals?
The Web has greatly reduced the barriers to entry for new journals and other platforms for communicating scientific output, and the number of journals continues to multiply. This leaves readers and authors with the daunting cognitive challenge of navigating the literature and discerning contributions that are both relevant and significant.
Biomedical research: are all the results correct?
Poor reproducibility is only one of many factors that together make biomedical research highly inefficient.
Why faculty members work so much?
As I am writing this article, I should be writing something else: an email to an editor, an email to an author, a letter of recommendation, notes for tomorrow’s classes, comments on students’ papers, comments on manuscripts, an abstract for an upcoming conference, notes for one of the books I’m working on.
The death of American universities
As universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is being imposed by force. The following is an edited transcript (prepared by Robin J. Sowards) of remarks given by Noam Chomsky last month to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Penn.
Journals, repositories, peer review, non-peer review, and the future of scholarly communication
Journals, repositories, peer review, non-peer review, and the future of scholarly communication
Essay on the problems relating to reliance on subject-specific journals and peer review.
Science funding and the value of science investigation and education
"We must put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade." These were the words spoken in 1961 to Congress by the late President John F.Kennedy, who fifty years ago this month was struck down by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
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